Paul Iddon – Blogcriticshttp://blogcritics.org
The critical lens on today's culture & entertainmentSat, 10 Dec 2016 01:38:24 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust “Skepticism”http://blogcritics.org/ahmadinejads-holocaust-skepticism/
http://blogcritics.org/ahmadinejads-holocaust-skepticism/#commentsSat, 04 Feb 2012 08:58:36 +0000In reporting on what it describes as a “pro-Holocaust” documentary being shown on Turkish television, Press TV gave us a trademark example of the gymnastics the Iranian government takes with regards to the existence of the Holocaust since Ahmadinejad made his now infamous remarks six years ago.

In a retrospectively amusing interview with journalist Mike Wallace back in 1976, the last Shah of Iran expressed some qualms over the Jewish lobby in the United States. He stated among other things it was too powerful for the interests of Israel as it pushed around and directly influenced too many people’s decisions regarding certain issues. He was clearly referring to American Israeli lobby groups such as AIPAC when he pronounced these qualms.

Some 30 years later, the president of Iran would cause international controversy, condemnation, a media storm and widespread distress when he referred to the Holocaust as a mere myth; a fabricated legend created by the Zionists. Ahmadinejad’s provocative pronouncements were downright hurtful to the Jewish people, as they directly undermined and cheapened an incident in history that is a major part of the collective Jewish psyche by denying it ever even happened and that the pain and suffering several of the survivors endured; the horror and memories of watching their families and friends perish or be brutally, systemically and callously murdered, as ocurred in the death camps in Poland, was simply a myth they bought into and that it didn’t really happen to them. This is how they inflame and hurt people, by flat out telling them that the horrors which they had experienced and endured first hand had never even happened.

Personally I don’t feel the need, nor do I have any desire, to have to silence Holocaust deniers, or deny them a right to voice their opinions, misunderstandings or skepticism with minor details they may not understand. To do so gives these fanatics their own free speech “martyrs” and further convinces them that their outlandish claims have therefore been given credence. While their pronouncements are certainly hurtful to the Jewish people, and are usually leavened with anti-Semitic innuendos, they are for the most part self-discrediting; those who preach them shouldn’t be jailed for voicing such opinions, but should instead be shunned and shamed from all normal realms of society. Those who may be genuinely skeptical about the transpiration of the Final Solution and the widespread systemic destruction of European Jewry should be allowed to voice such skepticism and to have it addressed. Is that what Ahmadinejad is doing, as he has hinted towards on more than one occasion?

Shortly after he proclaimed the Holocaust to be a myth, Hamas’s political leader, Khaled Mashaal, stated Ahmadinejad’s pronouncements were “courageous.” It wasn’t in the least bit surprising that Hamas would endorse his statements, when you take into account that they also disseminate the century-old proven fabrication, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (sometimes described as Hitler’s warrant for genocide, among other things), as literal truth. Hamas was also founded on a charter which possesses a rather nasty core of anti-Semitism and racism. Having such bedfellows does not give much credence to Ahmadinejad’s claim of being merely skeptical with regards to the Holocaust.

When the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust (a pretentiously named conference to say the least) was convened in Tehran in 2006, it not only upset the 25,000-or-so-strong Jewish community in Iran, but also proved to be nothing more than a conglomeration of pseudo-intellectuals, including, among others, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who convened in such a manner as to conceal their anti-Semitic nature, using the guise of an academic discussion in which to do so.

Since then, Ahmadinejad has stated that his Holocaust skepticism comes as a result of his quarrel with the Zionists who, of course, aren’t exclusively Jewish. His statement is puzzling, considering that as a result of the Holocaust, the early pre-Israeli-statehood history of the origins of Zionism has been widely forgotten by the thousands who survived the horrors of a Nazi-dominated Europe and fought the British presence in Palestine to achieve statehood. For those survivors, the Holocaust was the deciding factor and driving force for the need for a Jewish state. It is clear that Ahmadinejad’s motive is to deny, and thus deprive, the Jewish masses of their motive in their fight for statehood in the wake of their near extermination. His monomaniacal focus on, and obsession about, the Jewish question is probably the most creepy aspect of Ahmadinejad’s politics and character to me, and his attempts to downplay this obsession by stating that it comes out of his concern for the treatment of Palestinians strikes me as obtuse.

To deny such a highly significant event in history is to deny that it had such a chillingly profound impact on a wide range of people; it is to deny the mere existence and heroism of such people. It is to deny the brave Iranian statesman Abdol Hossein Sardari, who helped many French Jews escape the clutch of the Nazis by issuing them Iranian passports. Sardari has come to be known as the “Schindler of Iran.” And even in light of Ahmadinejad’s statements and his kooky conference, Sardari’s story has been dramatized in an Iranian TV show, Zero Degree Turn.

I think this is a great tribute to the heroism and memory of Sardari and those like him who found themselves in a position to do something to help their fellow man, and took that chance, with all its risks and the grave dangers that they would be faced with as a result of their actions at that time.

To deny the Holocaust’s reality or insinuate that it never took place denies that any of this even happened. But the impact of such heroes cannot and will not be denied or conveniently forgotten to provide mere political leverage to a proven demagogue and moral coward.

“I stuck around St. Petersburg When I saw it was a time for a change Killed the Czar and his ministers Anastasia screamed in vain I rode a tank Held a generals rank When the blitzkrieg raged And the bodies stank”

— ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ by The Rolling Stones

It’s very difficult to comprehend how much of a culturally and historically significant city St. Petersburg is until one sees and experiences it for oneself.

Nevertheless I will in what I hope will not be a futile attempt try and convey the feeling one gets when walking through this city, and along with this conveyance try and illustrate the unique and classical character the city has.

Walking its streets it is hard to believe that Petersburg was built up from swamp and marshland some 300 years ago. Formerly Petrograd and Leningrad respectively, St. Petersburg is clearly modelled after the classical European cities of the day. Saint Isaac’s Cathedral for example, which reminded me of the Notre Dame in Paris, was designed by a French-born architect appointed by Tsar Alexander I.

The hotel my party and I were staying in (my fellow travellers were my older brother Dez, his girlfriend Kristina, Kristina’s mother Elona, and her partner Markku) was on the Nevsky Prospekt which is a short walk from the famous and splendid Winter Palace.

From the get-go we were warned by the hotel staff about pickpockets operating around said popular tourist destination. However we never had such trouble. I heard talk about Putin’s ‘iron fist’ against crime. This brought to mind the tough measures Putin took in the early 1990s when he was appointed head of the Committee of External Relations of the Saint Petersburg Mayor’s Office, where his duty was to ensure law and order did not collapse amidst the widespread chaos and confusion that followed in Russia in the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. About criminals Putin stated the below – which clearly illustrates the hardline stance he planned to have enforced:

If criminals have attacked authority there must be an appropriate punishment, it’s a policeman’s duty to be severe and cruel if necessary. It’s the only way to reduce criminality, the only way. We hope to eliminate 10 criminals for each [police] officer killed…within the law of course.

The port areas of St. Petersburg in particular have been the sites of a large and ongoing turf war between Putin’s supporters and the Russian Mafia.

When talking and thinking about the city of Petersburg (and Russia in general) it’s hard not to think about war, oppression, and revolution. A lot of the latter is symbolically encased in the Russian cruiser Aurora. This ship fired the first shots of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and is still moored in St. Petersburg as a relic of the revolutionary days as well as a very salient reminder of the communist days of yore.

Looking at the Aurora it can be difficult to comprehend how significant and symbolic this one early-20th-century warship is. In 1975 for example the officers of the Soviet naval frigate Storozhevoy planned to mutiny and start a revolution. They saw Leonid Brezhnev and his elites decaying from senility and as a result were clearly more interested in their own affluence and hold on power than on upholding the true values of the people’s revolution. It is fitting that to start what was in all regards a reformation of the Soviet system (rather than a revolution) the captain of the Storozhevoy planned to park his frigate beside the Aurora’s permanent mooring site in St. Petersburg where he’d then attempt to address the people to start such a reformation. Although his ship was boarded by commandos before he could complete this plan it is interesting, and very telling in retrospect of how symbolic the Aurora was to communism and the Red October revolution.

On the subject of war and oppression one cannot omit the historically infamous and brutal 872-day siege which saw then Leningrad subjected to the most lethal siege in world history, where a German policy of deprivation, starvation, and extermination was employed to break the will of the city’s residents.

Over a million Russians were killed and perished in Leningrad during that horrible time and much of the city was levelled. Those inhabitants who lived through it must have known what hell was like; apart from the starvation they had to endure, those who survived were permanently scarred by memories of what they had to do in order to make it through the brutality and conditions of sheer terror Hitler’s besieging armada was afflicting on them.

Hitler saw no need to leave Leningrad standing, a secret directive shows that he had “decided to raze the City of Petersburg from the face of the earth,” to clear the way for the Wehrmacht on its march to Moscow.

The diary of a young girl named Tanya Savicheva is probably the most famous artifact remaining from that horrific siege, simply a log of the time and dates her family died. Like Anne Frank she’d previously had a real diary; however she burned it when there was nothing left to keep the family stove lit during the dreaded Russian winter. It is striking in its formality considering its horrific subject matter. And it is a reminder of what essentially every resident of Leningrad went through, and the scarring effects those years had on the survivors.

There is a magical moment in Michael Jones’s book Leningrad: State of Siege where he brilliantly describes how the starving, weary, frightened, freezing, exhausted, and dying residents of that city mustered all their strength and civility by getting together to see a live orchestra play the Symphony No. 7 “Leningrad” by Dmitri Shostakovich, broadcast through loudspeakers all over the city and over the radio. It has been said by many veterans from the German side – who visited years after the war – that once they picked up the sound of that orchestra they knew they could never break the spirit of the people of Leningrad.

It is quite fitting that the orchestra in some respects marked the symbolic turning point of the war, as the date it was played was the same date that Hitler had chosen to celebrate the projected and predicted date that Leningrad would have fallen. This setback was symbolic in the gradual turning point of the war, which would see the Soviet Army successfully bring an end to the siege, turn the tide of war, and within a year go on the offensive against the Third Reich.

Well into the postwar years my traveling companion Markku had visited then Leningrad during the Soviet era. His recollection is of a much different Petersburg (circa 1976) than of the one there today. The most noticeable differences he stated were the relatively small amount of traffic in comparison to the clogged streets there today, and a lack of individualism. The Soviet propaganda of the day often asserted that individualism was one of the more primitive aspects of man, like the equally corrupting greed and lust that embodied the reality of the American dream as they saw it.

Markku reflected that the women of the day always seemed to find an underlying way of publicly showing some signs of defiance to Soviet rules and regulations. He added furthermore that women always seem to possess an innate ability to express themselves more than men. One needs to look no further than the various women’s rights movements which daily find new and innovative ways of defying strict Islamic laws against them in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at present to vindicate his observation.

I must not have been very imaginative, as I could not for the rest of that day (and until present in retrospect) visualize St. Petersburg having ever been a bland and conformist kind of a place. That night I found it progressively more difficult when taking a scenic river tour across the city.

From the great vantage point the river boat tour offers from the beautiful Nova, you can see some of the most historically significant sites in Petersburg, each one unique and quaint in its own regard and each one contributing in one way or another to the overall aura of this city.

And speaking of character, following our disembarkation at the quay by the Winter Palace we stumbled upon a large conglomerate of people cheering a local street band, which was quite good, as was the lively, friendly, inviting atmosphere – especially considering this was 3 a.m.

Another sight to behold is the frequency in which you see people with small pet bears just sitting or strolling around watching the world go by. Again just another one of the little things that all add together to give this place its uniqueness and its charm.

St. Petersburg is a periphery city, right on the edge of Russia and Europe, and because of this unique location it seems to have been able to take in the best of both worlds, and in the process rival the great big European cities like Berlin and Paris whilst also simultaneously rivalling Moscow as Russia’s cultural centre.

I don’t think there was a more fitting way to leave Petersburg than by train from Finland Station, where Vladimir Lenin arrived from Germany on the 3rd of April to start the October Revolution in a symbolic hinge moment heralding the Soviet epoch in Russia.

We took from our visit to Petersburg fond and rich memories of a city steeped in culture and history.

Approximately 20 years ago Leningrad was once again renamed St. Petersburg, symbolic of the ushering in of a new era, which begun with the city impoverished and on the brink of famine. To this day it has remained as a hub (or shrine) for Russia’s intellectuals and historians who themselves can only vaguely ponder where this significant and historically peculiar city will be 20 years from now.

]]>http://blogcritics.org/the-aura-of-st-petersburg/feed/0Book Review: Last Words: A Memoir by George Carlin and Tony Hendrahttp://blogcritics.org/book-review-last-words-a-memoir/
http://blogcritics.org/book-review-last-words-a-memoir/#respondTue, 31 Jan 2012 01:08:01 +0000Love him or loathe him, admire him or despise him, you would have to grant — even if you disagreed with him — that George Carlin was funny, witty, controversial, and thought provoking. And if you did loathe him you’d have to be rather disingenuous to deny he had a large influence on hundreds of other now-famous stand-up comedians. The respects and tributes given to him upon the news of his 2008 death by several of today’s more prominent mainstream comedians attest to this.

His daughter Kelly stated in a brief review on Amazon of this sortabiography (George found the term “autobiography” pretentious since “only pinheaded criminal business pricks and politicians wrote autobiographies”) that her father kept his inner life pretty close to his chest — however, in this book she states that he shows his hand fully. Indeed, after reading it one finds this is clearly the case. As is evident in how he describes the peak of a cocaine addiction so severe that Kelly, 10 at the time, had to be a mediator between her father and her mother, brought ever closer to knifing each other.

I cite this part of the book simply to show that Carlin isn’t selective in his recollection of his life. Which for some parts makes this a somewhat dark memoir. Nevertheless, don’t let this put you off, there are many more moments in this book that are very heartwarming and memorable. For instance, Carlin brilliantly describes being arrested along with one of his black friends in segregated 1950s Louisiana (for the crime of being driven around by a man whose skin wasn’t white) and goes on to describe how they smoked pot together during their night in jail.

Carlin’s recollections of the blackouts in New York City during World War II and of his military service at Barksdale Air Force Base during the 1950s period of the Cold War epoch are rather amusing. His chapter about his military service in particular is a delight to read. Especially his reasoning about joining the Air Force. That is to say, he’d much rather drop bombs on brown and yellow people from high altitude, then fly home to take a shower and go out dancing, than the alternative of doing his service in the army — which would consist of fighting in a jungle for days at a time whilst shitting in a helmet.

His memories of the 1960s, his first wife Brenda, Lenny Bruce, and his famous “7 Dirty Words” routine (there is a whole chapter dedicated to words, one of Carlin’s ever-great sources of interest, speculation, and amusement) are also very interesting and revealing, as well as dramatic and in some instances tragic.

Fans of Carlin’s HBO specials will find his evaluation of each of them to be of particular interest. Especially since in each case he cites the most memorable jokes and quips and goes into considerable detail about the time and context as well as how he came up with his respective pieces of material and how he gradually evolved them over time.

Following Brenda’s death from liver cancer, Carlin remarried and in the latter years of his life grew more reflective and reminiscent. And in a wonderful finish-up he, in a sense, goes back to his boyhood where he is reunited with his former self. Once again the initial sources of his inspirations that built up his character and career were everywhere, including his mother, who would come home from work in wartime Manhattan and was able to tell a story whilst simultaneously playing six characters.

It’s rather fitting that George concludes his life’s story with that note. It is a pity that someone of his comedic calibre has passed away. Even though he was aging he still produced consistently entertaining routines. Comedian Bill Maher in his tribute to him on Larry King, for instance, noted that George in some senses got more entertaining and took less prisoners the older he got. His attitude was essentially “I’m old now, what are ya gonna do to me?”

Last Words is an excellent memoir, and a treat for any major Carlin fan who’s seen all of the material he has built up over the years and has followed his stuff through various stages of his career. However, for someone relatively new to his work, I’d recommend you avoid reading Last Words until you’ve watched and/or listened most of Carlin’s routines (especially his HBO specials), as being familiar with most of his work puts it all into context with regards to what stage of his life he was in, and makes this sortabiography all the more entertaining, interesting and insightful.

]]>http://blogcritics.org/book-review-last-words-a-memoir/feed/0Book Review: Hella Nation by Evan Wrighthttp://blogcritics.org/book-review-hella-nation-by-evan/
http://blogcritics.org/book-review-hella-nation-by-evan/#respondFri, 27 Jan 2012 03:40:30 +0000Veteran journalist and author Evan Wright begins Hella Nation by giving a formal repudiation of the categorization of “gonzo” – the journalistic genre pioneered and in a sense trademarked by the famous and sadly late Hunter S. Thompson – that is a term often used to describe his work. Wright argues to the contrary and asserts that he does his utmost to focus on his stories’ subject sake rather than making himself a central and focal part of his writings.

Whilst this book is essentially made up of his previously published journalistic material, it is more than just a compilation as such. The lives of the people conveyed and portrayed in all of Wright’s material in Hella Nation are in a lot of ways inextricably tied to each other; be they anarchists, internet con artists, militant environmentalists, porn stars or neo-Nazi’s they all share a fundamental trait. That being one of disconnection and disenfranchisement from mainstream American society.

This broad intertwining makes reading this book a unique experience. Wright’s style of writing gives you a front seat view and gives you the opportunity to witness and experience firsthand the lives, viewpoints and actions of the various groups Wright spent time with or embedded himself in. This, coupled with his excellent prose, adds up to a rich reading experience. Which is impressive considering that the nature of some of Wright’s subjects are repulsive and utterly reprehensible (the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations group he profiles in Idaho is the most salient example of this) yet nonetheless interesting.

Other essays are engrossing because of their dark humour and coy subjects. Wright has described this book as a quasi autobiography of his career. Thus it begins with a lengthy introduction and follows up with his first essay that chronicles his early career working for Hustler. His experiences in the porn industry make up his first essay, simply and descriptively titled “Scenes from my Life in Porn.” It is oddly amusing given its obscene and depraved subject matter. The experiences Wright describes are obscene; however, the way he recollects them is strikingly amusing.

For example, he describes covering the set of a “the worlds largest gang bang” for Hustler as being intense. He states that watching so many men willfully engage themselves in pure acts of depravation and insanity stirred up a feeling inside of him that he had only previously experienced when in combat. The sheer comical ridiculousness of the whole industry is described beautifully when he outlines how the same porn-star strove to once again top herself not long after the “novelty” of the gang bang wore off by shooting flames from her anus. The depravity and frivolousness of the entire stunt is conveyed beautifully by Wright in his recollection, and you can’t do anything but laugh at how well he conveys the sheer and utter ridiculousness of the whole thing.

His profile of the con artist Seth Warshavsky, the young man who garnered considerable wealth through internet porn in the late 1990s, is strikingly brilliant in its overall evaluation and observation. Similar to the write-up on Warshavsky is Wright’s evaluation of his time with Pat Dollard; former liberal turned conservative Dollard became convinced that a conspiratorial liberal bias was prevalent in Hollywood and subsequently strove to become a conservative version of Michael Moore and went to Iraq to make pro-war documentaries. In an unbiased and professional manner and with masterful conveyance Wright documents Dollard’s evolution into a megalomaniac.

His coverage of the anti-WTO Seattle riots of 1999 is brilliant. Integrated with a group of young anarchists inspired by the likes of the infamous Unabomber Ted Kaczynski. The most prominent figure in this essay is a young anarchist who went by the name of Wingnut – whom read Kaczynski’s manifesto while squatting in a tree in protest of deforestation – who with his fellow anarchists devoted his life to striking at corporate business and franchises in a manner latently similar to the Project Mayhem plot line in the movie Fight Club.

Reiterating my opening point, Hella Nation isn’t just a random collection of old magazine essays. It is a wondrous collection of dispatches from the outer lying fringes of American society, from the proverbial diverging tributaries emanating from the recognizable mainstream. This is what makes it unique, and what makes it a very significant account of the varying characters who live on those outer fringes of society.